The Choices of an Other
by Konda020946
Summary: Follow Harry into the world of the Others, as Wizards are not the only secret society his world has. Young Harry accidentally used his powers to create a Dark Vortex. Alexia a member of Londons Nightwatch has wittnesed it and now wants to recruit the young Other for the Light. I neither own Harry Potter, Nightwatch nor their universes, those belong Lukjanenko and Rowling.
1. Chapter 1

The boy, whose instinctual power output she had witnessed from afar seemingly did not know what it felt like to be happy. His aura showed not one ounce of happiness, it consisted of pure suffering. Surely the boy would become a Dark one.

It saddened the lead-investigator of London's Nightwatch to see such a promising young Other become a Dark one. She was sure that the boy had the potential to at least achieve the first level, if trained properly the boys power level could even bring him out of classification system.

What an asset for the Light the boy could be.

She asked herself if this asset would be an adequate use of her personal resources. London's Nightwatch surely had the capacities to ensure an action on that degree, but if the Daywatch somehow found out about it, they would surely try to contest the actions and would demand a Tribunal, to clarify the matters.

In a Tribunal the boy would not stand a chance against becoming a ward of the Daywatch, his aura was dominated by Dark behavior, that meant if nothing live-changing happened to him, his destiny laid in the hands of the Dark part of the Gloom.

She herself could use one of her three legal interventions of first level, to change the boy's aura. She had kept close watch on those three interventions. The first and the second one were gifts for her 18th birthday and her wedding day. The third one was assigned in the normal 24 year cycle, in which every Other one, who's power level was beyond classification, was assigned one. That way the Sorceress had earned 3 more interventions but the other ones had been used to this day.

The Remoralisation of an Other of the boy's power level was surely worth one of those. The modifications needed afterwards were miniscule at best. A few 6th and 7th level interventions to ensure that the boy was in her or the Nightwatch's care. She had those stacked high. She had chosen to risk it.

Alexandra looked around herself to ensure that no one was watching her picked up her Shadow and stepped into the first level of the Gloom. There she summoned the primal force of the gloom to ensure that neither the Inquisition nor the Daywatch had a right to contest her actions. "I Alexandra Grand Light Sorceress hereby declare, with the Light as my witness, that I use one of the interventions of the first degree that are rightfully mine, to remoralize the potential Other in front of me, to proselyte him to the Light."

9 year old Harry James Potter has had a bad day. First he was woken by his killer whale of a cousin, who tried to leave the house to hang out with his gang at night. Indubitably the idiot, who would not understand the meaning of the word stealth or sneakiness if it was tattooed onto his forehead, was caught and somehow Harry who had been locked in his cupboard the last two days was blamed for it.

Vernon proceeded to `punish´ the boy as he thought that it was adequate. Meaning Harry again was beaten, severely. As it was a school day again Vernon `graciously´ restrained himself in the usage of his belt and therefore Harry `only´ had suffered bruises.

After school Dudley and to his own surprise Harry had been picked up by Petunia.

This occurrence only happened because Harry's aunt needed a mule to carry the packages from the local furniture shop.

The nine year old was forced to carry and load the newly bought chairs and only a friendly attendant had saved him from having to carry the solid oak table too.

While the attendant was loading the table into the car Harry was seated besides the counter, where Petunia was chatting with one of her acquaintances. The discussion of the two gossipers somehow had returned to the topic of Harry's mother. As usual Petunia was only telling the worst kind of lies about his mother.

Harry had early found out that nobody was able to lie to him and he somehow always knew what the liars tried not to say. It was not like he understood everything immediately. If the person lied about something Harry did not understand he was given the information he was unable to understand, but still could not make sense of it. Additionally somehow anything his aunt and uncle thought about the word freakishness was gibberish.

Brought back from his mental excurse, by his aunt's rude pointing, he had to endure a tirade about what kind of slouch and trollop his mother seemingly had been. It is not exaggerated to say that nothing of it had been true. This obvious lie enraged Harry to that degree that he did use his anger directly. Of course he would not do anything out loud for it would surely lead to another beating, but still he was able to use any swearword he knew mentally. With every word he felt as if he was drained a little bit more to the point where he was glad to sit. As he had finished his mental cussing, he again sat there and waited for his aunt to finish. As the woman was a notorious gossiper she was far from finished and the talk continued for seemingly hours, which in reality were about 4 minutes.

Then it happened. Within a few seconds he felt an enormous rush of power that seemed to wash over him and cleanse him afterwards all color drained from his surrounding and he suddenly felt cold.

In a castle up in Scotland a bunch of metallic devices stopped working.

At the place where Harry was beforehand a black cloud shrieked painfully and then dissolved into nothing.

"Hello. My Name is Alexandra. May I inquire your name?" Harry heard a calm female voice asking. He immediately turned around to look into the direction of the speaker to see a redhead woman who seemed to be in her mid thirties and was about 5 foot 8 inches tall.

"Hello Alexandra, my Name is Harry Potter. Do you know where I am, why I am here, why is everything here so gloomy and cold and who or what are you?" The inquisitive boy asked, unnerved by the sudden changes around him, but comforted by the appearance of the woman.

"Oh someone who asks the right questions."Alexandra smirked. "This place is called the Gloom. This is a separate dimension, a different slice of the big cake that is reality, so to say. You are here because I brought you here. It is so cold and gloomy in here because it is the Gloom's nature to be gloomy and cold. As to who or what I am. I am what is called a Grand Light Sorceress, my name as I walked besides the mortals was Alexandra but that was a century ago. Nowadays I am called Alexia." The woman explained.

"Why did you bring me here? And is magic really real?" Harry asked.

"Yes magic is real. Actually you have performed a piece of magic not five minutes ago. That you were able to perform magic was the reason I brought you here."

"So I am a Sorcerer? And what was the magic I performed?"

"What kind of Other you are is not yet written into stone, it will depend on the decisions you will one day make. The magic you performed was a curse better known as Dark Vortex. You can see it there on top of your aunt's head. The thing that looks like a black cyclone is the Dark Vortex. You see if a curse like, you should die miserably, or something like that is spoken with the intention behind it, it creates this kind of curse. A humans curse mostly is weak and holds no real power. It can ruin your day or have you eat something bad. The curse has to be spoken with a lot of intention and rage behind it to actually achieve the goal it was created for. This changes if the curse is spoken by an Other. Then such a curse quite surely kills the person and with increasing strength of the person who used the curse, it will kill more and more innocent bystanders. You Harry are quite powerful. If you don't reverse the curse or someone with more power than you breaks it this curse will kill a lot of people."

"So you want me to reverse the curse? Is that why I am here?"

"No it isn't the reason. I am quite capable to undo the curse on my own. The reason why you are here is because there are two kinds of magicals or like we call ourselves two kinds of others. There are the Dark ones and the Light ones. Both sides are bound by the great contract. For your information the contract shall not be cited from the memory. If you ever need it just summon it from the Gloom, by thinking about it lying in your hands. The contract is the following."

We are the Others

We serve different forces

But in the Gloom there is no difference

Between the absence of the Darkness

And the absence of the Light

Our power is able to destroy the world

We make the great contract about the cease-fire

Every side lives according to its laws

Every side will have its own rights

We limit our rights and our laws

We are the Others

We found the Nightwatch

For the forces of the Light

To watch over the forces of the Dark

We are the Others

We found the Daywatch

For the forces of the Dark

To watch over the forces of the Light

Time will decide the winner

"Do you understand what it means?"Alexia asked.

"I think there was a war between Light and Dark and both sides did not want to annihilate the world so they made the contract. Am I right?" Harry pondered.

"Yes you are. As I told you I am a member of the Light. I felt you using that dark curse and as a member of the Nightwatch I was bound to investigate it. Believe me when I tell you I was astounded to see such a young uninitiated Other cast such a strong dark Vortex." Alexia stated.

"Am I in trouble then for breaking the contract?" Harry asked.

Hearing that she calmingly replied. "No you are not. At least no longer. You see before I came here you would surely have become a Dark one. There was no chance for you to become a member of the Light. You might remember a line in the contract about the rights of an Other. Each of us has depending on his or her power level rights to intervene into the lives of other people. The bigger the influence is the rarer are the permissions to do such a thing. I used one of my rarest to change your morals and emotions. I made sure that instead of you being angry pained or full of sorrow, you would be able to feel love happiness and luck. Then I pulled you into the Gloom and read the contract to you. That procedure is called initiation. That normally means that you are now on the way to become a member of the Light and that I am now bound to teach you the laws and abilities of our kind. I hope you can forgive me my intrusion into your life."

"If I have understood you correctly, you did it because you hoped to recruit me to your side of the battle. I don't like that to be honest. The advantages are great but you seem to only be interested into me as a weapon."

"You don't need to fight. Only members of the Nightwatch and the Daywatch do so. You don't have to enter the Nightwatch. You can live a live outside the watches with all the advantages of an Other as long as you don't violate the contract. The only thing you will have to do is taking the classes explaining you your powers and the laws, afterwards you can do what you want to do. As the one who initiated you I am supposed to give you the classes but as I work for the Nightwatch I am entitled to hand over this responsibility to the watch. You have the choice to take anyone else as a teacher who is willing to teach you. You would also be able to leave the Gloom and the powers you would get from them behind and become an ordinary human again, but if you use your powers while choosing to be human the Nightwatch will not be able to protect you from the Daywatch or the Inquisition."

"So if I become a Light one I get to chose between being a member of the Nightwatch or not. If I chose not to be a member I have to follow the laws the same way as I would have to without being an Other at all, but I would be able to use my powers. I would only have to limit my power usage. If I enter the watch I can use my powers as long as I stick to the contract. Did I get that right?" Harry asked.

"Yes you did, but the only choice you have to make now would be if you want to be an Other or not. Everything else is to be decided in the future."

"I have a few last questions before I make my decision. Is that ok?"

"Go for it!"

"Do I have to tell the Dursleys, do I have to stay with them and what about regular school?"

"You are not required to finish school but it is highly recommended. As I don't know who the Dursleys are I suspect they are your guardians. Is the reason for you not telling them and not wanting to live with them that they abuse you?" Alexia asked knowing that such a thing is even if rare not imposible.

"I have to live in the cupboard under the stairs." Harry stated, pointing at the ghostly image that represented his aunt in the Gloom. Alexia was unable to detect any falsehood and immediately decided not to delete the Vortex over the woman's just to scale it down and pre-set its activation time, so that no one innocent had to suffer.

"I think we can forge papers so that you can live with a member of the Watch or in the watch directly as we have rooms for there too. If that is what you want." SHe calmingly stated as the last few sentences had agitated the child.

"I think the correct phrase for this situation is where do I sign?"


	2. Chapter 2

The London branch of the Nightwatch was located at the corner of Victoria Embankment and Bridge Street. The six storied building had several hidden floors not unlikely to the design idea the Dark ones of Moscow used to create their headquarter. The difference came into play when you looked to where the additional stories were located. Instead of using the human flats as shield against attacks from the Light ones like the Dark ones in Moscow, the Night Watch of London had put their 5 stories on top of the existing six mundane ones. The high chimneys of the building, that the humans of London were able to see, actually were the supporting beams of the building that housed the Night Watch. The advantage of this placement was a spectacular view of the Thames, the Big Ben, Westminster-Bridge and the future site of the London Eye. The building had several hidden entrances, one placed directly in the Westminster tube station located nearby. Alexandra decided against that entrance as she wanted to show the boy where the headquarter was. She decided against using the main entrance as she wanted to show off a little bit and every boy of his age liked being part of a secret organization or group, that had a secret lair and nothing said secret lair more than a hidden entrance. His reaction was as expected.  
"This is so cool." He whispered as they approached the point where the quay wall and the bridge wall met. She shooed him onto a spot vacant of humans and tourists, as they seemed to ignore the place at all. She then took Harry's hand and stepped into the Gloom, facing the river. There in front of them were some circular stairs, that led down into the underground and were closed off by bars that glowed menacingly.  
She turned to Harry and explained. "From the outside you can only use this entrance if you are authorized to do so. If you come from the inside you can always leave this way. The spells securing this place are not unbreakable or anything similar. That would be a waste of energy and to place such heavy enchantments around Normal humans you need the authorization from the Inquisition. Therefore we only put up locking and alarm spells that a Light one would be able to open if he is authorized. Of course a clever dark one can also open this gate but he or she can't do it without making a lot of noise." While she said that, she had opened the gate and led the boy down into a tunnel, where they stepped out of the Gloom and continued their way towards the headquarter. Said tunnel ended in front of a wooden door that concealed a lift. The door was opened with a few movements of her hand and the lift was called the normal way.

* * *

A minute later they stood in front of the bureau of London's highest ranking Light one. She explained Harry that he had to wait in front of the door with the woman's secretary. The man was a lower level Light one but so fiercely dedicated to his job that they would have been pressed hard to find a replacement for him. He had been a tourist from the continent, a few years back, as he had been noticed as a potential Other one and after he was initiated he was allowed to choose between staying in his home country or coming back to London to work there. As he had thought about moving to London before he stayed and became a member of their watch. After a few months of orientation and a practicum as an investigator, both Alexandra and he agreed that he wasn't material for the patrol jobs and he decided to do office duty. At this job he excelled and since then stayed there.  
He wasn't the best with kids and so just asked him if he had any question about the Nightwatch he wanted answered. Unfortunately he did not know that that was probably his worst idea of the day. Harry seemingly had saved any questions for the moment when he was sure that the nice lady would not dump him for being annoying. He seemed okay with the concept of asking the secretary any questions as he was unlikely to be able to persuade Alexandra of sending him back. Even as Alexandra returned from her conversation with her boss he was still questioning the secretary.

* * *

"Good Morning boss." Alexandra said happily.  
"Don't try to divert me Alex. The Daywatch is trying to collapse my desk with paperwork, due to your little first degree intervention. Honestly I am proud that you used one of your treasures so wisely but I am also a bit disappointed with you not informing me beforehand. That would have allowed me to run interference and finish the initiation before the Dark Ones get a knack of it. Now they have a chance of claiming him in front of a tribunal." She said hotly.  
"Actually he is fully initiated. I finished it right after the remoralization. He was so happy about the fact that he had not to go back to his aunt and uncle that he had enough positive energy to be fully initiated." Alexandra said with a smug look.  
"That bad of a family life hmm? Well I will talk with him. Perhaps I can help. Can't be worse than what I went through." She said while smiling. "You have done a good job with that one. As far as I can see the Dark Ones don't even know yet that the boy is here. How did you know which of the entrances wasn't under surveillance?"  
"I didn't know. It was a lucky guess paired with showing the boy a secret entry to an even more secret hideout. I think the Gloom just favored me today." She said with a smug smile.  
"We can only hope that that happens more often. What else do you need?"  
"Well I hoped that I could take the boy in if not possible I would ask if one of the other female members is volunteering. If nobody is willing or able to take him in I would ask the watch to take him in as a ward. Additionally I would ask to send a small recon team to his family's house to look if they have any personal memorabilia from his parents left and to make sure that the vortex doesn't hurt any innocents."  
"If you think you can handle your workload and raising a child I will not interfere. I know how hard it is on us not to be able to have children without seeing them wither away and die. I understand your need. Just don't push him too hard okay?" Alexandra's boss asked with a comforting smile. Alexandra answered that with a very happy smile. "You seem to have something else on the mind. Do you mind sharing?"  
"The boy, Harry said his family called him freak and said that they were lying to him when they said his parents died in a car crash. Can one of the team go through their memories and have a look what they meant?" She asked a little shy for asking so much.  
"We have only three Others who are capable of doing that in the short time frame you have set with the vortex. Maxwell is on an assignment and you should not be separated from Harry too much. That leaves only me for the job. I think I have the time to do this if you and can hold fort until I am back." The boss said while standing up and dusting off invisible smudges. "Do me a favor and call in your wife and tell her to come over and have a look at her new son. I know how much you love your little jokes but pulling a boy out of a top hat seems a little extravagant. In fact call her so that the boy can have acheckup by a doctor. As he is from an abusive household he is probably suffering from malnutrition and has a lot of old wounds." She said while opening a cupboard and taking out a trench coat. Afterwards she went towards the door and went out. "Franklin I am out of the office for about two and a half hours, I am taking Malcolm and Agnes with me, so make sure the shift advisor knows that they are not on call for the next 3 hours. Alexa will hold down the fort while I am away." She then turned to the boy and said. "Hi Harry I am Alexa's boss and am on my way to finalize anything I have to with your former family. Do you have anything there you want to take with you? Or anything you want me to ask them?"  
Harry shyly replied. "If you can look for anything that belonged to my parents, I mean if it doesn't take too much time."  
"Don't sweat it. It's childsplay to do that for me, but would you do me a favor and stay around Alexa for the time being? Running around here unsupervised could be dangerous and I don't want you to be harmed in any way. OK?" She said in a grandmotherly tone. Hearing that Harry nodded and followed Alexandra into her boss's office, where he was seated onto a couch. "How about you send someone from the analytic division to get the boy some new clothes Alex? You can put them down as expenses. Just don't buy snob brand products." The boss said while closing the door, behind herself.  
"Your boss is nice Alex." Harry said.  
"Yes she is a big old softie. I just don't want to face her if she is her battle mindset. She is pretty scary if she is. You know she allowed me to take you in. If you want it I am even allowed to adopt you." As he heard that Harry practically glowed from happiness.  
"I can have a proper family?" He asked astonished.  
"Well that depends on the definition of proper." Alex smirked. "You see as Others we rarely have children as they probably would not inherit our gift and would die before we do. Most of us don't have the courage to risk that. Therefore you will very much likely not have any brothers and sisters. The next thing is that my partner is a woman too, so you won't have a father per se. Is that a problem for you?" She asked now a little nervous herself.  
"I don't mind at all. I never understood why aunt Petunia slandered about that. If you love someone and he or she loves you back and both of them are old enough to know what they do, why should they not be together? I just got two mothers if you allow me to call you that. At least that is what I want to be able to call someone someday in the future." Harry said while being confident at the beginning but getting quite timid towards the end.  
"I can only talk for me, but I would very much like that. If I had to guess judging after Michaela's character that would be also a yes, but as I said I can't be sure. I want to call her now. She's a doctor and will give you a checkup to see what we can do for you and what is wrong with you physically. That is if you agree." She explained and as he nodded she picked up the phone and dialed.  
"Hi Alex, why are you calling me? I can't sense anything wrong, so you don't call to cancel our dinner reservation." Michaela said with a smirk in the voice.  
"No I am not. Today I found a boy. He was a potential Other one. Though due to his living circumstances he was bound to become a Dark one. I used one of my personal interventions to remoralize him and initiated him directly. His home has been highly abusive so I took him directly to the boss and asked her what to do. She allowed me to adopt him. I now wanted to ask you if you want to do so too."  
"He got your set of morals now. That is as close as he grew up with us as our son as it gets. I fully agree." The smirk in her voice turned into a full blown smile.  
"Can you come over and give him a checkup? He is quite scrawny and looks too small for his age." Alexandra asked.  
"I am on my way." Michaela simply stated.  
"Take the tube. The city is about to clog. The boss will be the last one to make it out there without being stuck in the traffic." Alexandra said while having a look at the probability lines. "By the way, Harry asked if he is allowed to call us mum. He said while is not ready to do it yet, he would very much like to do so in the future." While saying that Alexandra became very giddy again.  
"Yes and see you in half an hour." After that Alexandra had put down the receiver of the phone.  
"She is on her way and she is okay with you being adopted by us. She also agreed that you can call her mum as soon as you are ready to do so." Alexandra said smirking and looked at Harry who was examining the office from his place on the couch. It was understandable the office was crammed with artifacts and a lot of knick-knacks that the boss had collected over the years of her life. It was quite a lot of stuff for an Other as young as the boss. Actually it was quite rare for an Other as young as her boss being the head of such an important Nightwatch office, but her abilities had impressed the former boss to that degree that she was chosen over Alexandra even with Alexandra having more experience as the boss had. Honestly Alexandra preferred the fieldwork over office duty and was glad that she hadn't been chosen to be the new boss. "Do you have any other questions you want me to answer?" Hearing that Harry focused totally on Alexandra and started to question her again. This went on until Michaela arrived.  
"Hi Alexandra and you must be Harry. I am quite sure that you will have to keep the girls away with a stick if you are 15 or 16." Michaela said while ruffling his hair. "I am Michaela Alexandra's wife of 45 years." At that Harry stared at Alexandra astonished and sputtered.  
"You two are married for 45 years? How old are you? You don't look that old."  
"Oh sorry. I forgot to tell you that an Other doesn't age after his or her initiation."  
"I am going to stay a child forever? Why didn't you tell me? I didn't know that!" Harry practically shouted.  
"No a child ages till they reach their prime so something along the lines of 24, 25 years."  
"Oh sorry. Excuse my shouting please." He said timidly.  
"Don't worry about that. I would have reacted the same way. Alexandra have you forgotten to tell him anything else?" Michaela asked her wife.  
"Nope that is everything, but I wouldn't remember if I forgot it either." Alexandra said cheekily. At this Michaela sighed and turned to Harry again. "Alexandra said that you have been abused. Do you allow me to give you a checkup?"  
"If you have to." He said.  
Michaela motioned above his head a few seconds and furrowed her brow. "I want to use a spell called Sisyphus' Remedy on you. This will feel strange but it won't hurt. It will bring your body to the optimal possible level. Basically it will bring you to the level that you would have been able to achieve if you had been fed optimally and had exercised healthily. The second spell I want to use is the eye of Apollo it will heal your eyes, so that you are able to see without glasses. That one will pinch while your eyes acclimate. After we are finished with those two I will take your measurements and go buy you new clothes, as you can't run around in those rags." Harry immediately agreed to the fact happy about the fact that he would be able to see without his glasses. Michaela used the spells and hare grew half a foot and was no longer skinny to the point where a gust of wind could have blown him away. In this case the oversized clothes of Dudley were a blessing as fitting clothes would have been uncomfortably tight or would have ripped. After she examined the boy if the spell had worked correctly she used the next spell and Harry took off his glasses and was able to see clearly. Due to this fact he jumped around happily. Alexandra and Michaela watched the bundle of joy for a few minutes until they asked him to calm down and stand still so that Michaela could take measurements. As she was done with this, she stood up made her farewells and left for the next shopping centre. For the next 1 and a half hours Alexandra explained Harry the basics of the society of the Others.

* * *

In Surrey the team was finishing up the cleanup and had removed any reminders of Harry or his parents from the house and were starting the last phase of their operation, namely the mental search of the Dursleys and wiping their minds of anything related to Harry. The boss was the one doing this job and was intrigued with the memories of Vernon as he had known that Harry had magic but had never seen him use magic or seen anyone else do so. Afterwards she made way to Petunia hoping to finish the job quickly enough to do the rest of this week's paperwork.  
Jumping into her mind she finally found out from whom they knew of magic. Unluckily it turned out to be not the Others kind of magic, but the magic of the idiotic wand weavers and even worse was the person who had placed Harry with the Dursleys. She now was seething from anger for several reasons. She had to take action in protecting Harry and that meant paperwork. Obviously she took a very big disliking to paperwork. The second reason was that she would have to deal with the person she wanted to see the least of all people on the planet. Funnily Light Ones were unable to truly hate, but this person was nearly crossing that line. One day in the future she would have to deal with her moronic brother. This whole mess was his fault, why did he have to meddle. "Albus you old fool." She hissed.


End file.
